Question: If you could stop one medicine from ever being invented, what would it be and why?

Katie Fala answered on 12 Nov 2019:

That’s a good and tough question. Thalidomide comes to mind; this is a drug that was given to treat nausea and vomiting in pregnancy back in the 1950’s/1960’s but was found afterwards to cause birth defects in children, causing a huge amount of suffering and death. However, the problem wasn’t the drug itself, as it is still used today to treat certain cancers and leprosy, the problem was that the company released it onto the market without conducting the proper clinical trials. So I don’t think I would stop it being discovered, just go back in time to stop them releasing it without the proper and full safety testing.